Motoki Kasai

June 19– Japan’s daily {Yomiuri Shimbun} reported that the revised version of the Japanese government policy on “infrastructure exports” promotes cooperation with China for the first time, writing: “The government will pursue cooperation with China over infrastructure development in other countries amid plans to increase support for projects related to the Belt and Road, a massive economic initiative promoted by Beijing.

“Tokyo hopes to further facilitate the ongoing improvement in Japan-China relations as it seeks to increase business opportunities for Japanese companies. It is in the process of identifying joint projects with China based on such factors as the transparency.

“A revised version of the government’s basic policy on infrastructure exports, which was released earlier this month, referenced promoting cooperation with China for the first time. The inclusion follows an agreement between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in May in which they pledged to set up a joint committee comprised of both public and private sector officials to coordinate economic cooperation in third countries.

“Abe plans to visit China as early as this year and convene a new forum attended by both public and private sector representatives. Through the forum, the government hopes to
discuss the details of joint projects with China. Tokyo hopes to realize reciprocal visits between the leaders of Japan and China after achieving progress through talks.”
The article also quotes some government and ruling Liberal

Democratic Party (LDP) officials nagging against cooperation, pushing the usual arguments against China, e.g. its alleged hegemonism, which the government “sought to fend off.”

June 19–During his June 18-19 state visit to China, Bolivian President Evo Morales and his counterpart Xi Jinping elevated bilateral relations to the status of “strategic association,” by which they will deepen cooperation in a variety of sectors as well as coordinate on important international issues and at the United Nations. A special focus of their discussion was on advancing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Morales praised China for its efforts to create “a new type of international relations” in this context.

On June 13-14, Morales had a state visit in Russia, during which he and President Vladimir Putin also elevated their bilateral relations to the status of a strategic association. While in Russia, among other things, Morales indicated his interest in allying with the Eurasia Economic Union as well.

In a two-hour meeting June 18 with Xi Jinping, the two leaders signed an 11-point joint declaration detailing the specific areas in which they will expand cooperation — infrastructure, industrialization, finance, trade, manufacturing, science and technology (including aerospace), education and culture among them — and also signed a document committing themselves to jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative. Morales expressed the hope that by working together to build the BRI, this will also contribute to expanding cooperation between China and Ibero-America, Xinhua reported.

Xi commented that the BRI “offers a new platform” by which China’s relations with Ibero-America can be strengthened. He also pointed out that both China and Bolivia have ancient civilizations and should learn from each other to explore the use of “ancestral wisdom” to better deal with today’s problems. In terms of financing for development, the joint declaration emphasizes Bolivia’s intention to complete its application for membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). China’s Eximbank will make a credit line available to assist Bolivia in building a command-and-control center for a subregional security system, and the China Development Bank will be helping to finance construction of the Bombeo-Tuneo highway, according to Xinhua.

There is an ongoing transformational shift underway in the world, as the era of geopolitics, with its destruction of nations through financial manipulations and wars, is being challenged by the emergence of a new era of “win-win” policies of mutual benefit, spearheaded by China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Developments in Asia, with the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Qingdao, China, provide examples which show that peaceful economic cooperation is not only possible, but is already underway. The benefits of this new era can be seen in new infrastructure projects throughout Eurasia, Africa, and in South and Central America, and the clamor to be included is also heard now in a number of nations in Europe.

The growing likelihood of a Trump-Putin summit is part of this new geometry, an indication that the U.S. President is breaking out of the containment intended by the fraudulent, so-called Russiagate allegations. For this moment of great opportunity to be realized, there must be an elevation in both the capabilities of creative thinking, and passionate activation, of citizens of all nations. Schiller Institute founder and President Helga Zepp LaRouche’s weekly webcasts are a critical part of elevating populations to the level required by this promising moment of history.

Help us organize to make these webcasts available to growing numbers of people, to bring new activists into the fight for the New Paradigm each week.

June 18, 2018 – China’s Global Times newspaper today published an op-ed, “Neocolonial Europe Behind {Aquarius}’ Fate,” on the EU’s crisis of African migration. The Italian author, Orazio Maria Gnerre, knows the work of Lyndon and Helga LaRouche. His concluding paragraphs contain important elements of Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s June 16 call for EU-China development of African economies to be the subject of the June 28-29 EU summit – the “Singapore summit principle.”

Gnerre wrote, “Unfortunately, however, the simple solutions presented by the two sides, the government and the opposition, are not adequate. The blockade of ports will be useless if African countries remain underdeveloped in economic and suprastructural terms, and will continue to be the theater of war. It is not possible to export all the inhabitants of Africa either to Italy or Europe given the sheer demographic dimensions.

“The solution, which does not seem to be in sight of the electorate or the European parties, should involve putting an end to the neocolonial process of dispossession of the African region by Europe, perhaps to arrive at a joint economic relationship between Europe itself and Africa, according to the virtuous model that China is implementing in Central Africa. Such a development that is not predatory or politically intrusive could lay the foundation for the future of an entire continent, too often a victim of aggressive capitalism of the West.”

Gnerre has been sent Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s full call for the European Union summit of special character, as have many figures around the new Italian government for whom this is an absolutely critical matter.

The contrast could hardly be clearer. In Singapore, the historic summit between President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un launched a process that, beyond the region itself, could guarantee world peace for the future; at the same time, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) rang in a new era in building a new world order based on trust, harmony and joint development. On the other hand, there was the disunited, antagonistic G7 summit, whose European heads of state and government then returned home, only to plunge into a new dispute over the flare-up of the refugee crisis, and to react to that crisis with remedies as heinous as they are useless. It is high time for a policy reorientation on the old continent! The immediate opportunity to do so is the upcoming EU summit on June 28-29!

Notwithstanding all the cynical comments from the usual suspects in the mainstream media, the groundbreaking summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un would never have been possible without the spirit of the New Silk Road, that has swept over Asia in particular in recent years. Indeed, the idea of economically including North Korea in the integration of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union was very much present at last year’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. And at the Panmunjom Inter-Korean summit in April of this year, South Korean President Moon Jae-in presented his North Korean counterpart with a USB stick containing detailed plans for the economic development of the North.

The White House, in collaboration with the National Security Council, had prepared a video envisaging the perspective of a modern, industrialized, prosperous North Korea—a high-speed rail system, a Chinese maglev, industrial parks, a country on the rise – which Trump showed the North Korean Chairman during their meeting before the final press conference. One can only recommend to those minds in the West that have already been “categorized” and stuffed full of prejudices by the media, to watch Trump’s press conference themselves in the archives. A sovereign U.S. President presented the outcome of the summit: the total nuclear disarmament of North Korea, in return for security guarantees, the lifting of sanctions and the pledge to make North Korea prosperous. In addition, he announced the immediate end of the U.S.-South Korean military maneuvers. That will save a lot of money, he said, and they are “very provocative” anyway.

The people of both Koreas reacted ecstatically to the live broadcast of the Summit and the press conference. President Moon repeatedly commented with enthusiastic applause. We in Germany should recall the elation at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall to get a sense of the effect on the population there.

Not only did China and Russia in particular conduct important background negotiations with North Korea in the run-up to the summit, but the Russian government has also pledged to assist in economic development, while the Chinese government promised to help provide security guarantees for North Korea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed the importance of resuming the six-party talks for an internationally secured implementation of the agreement. China’s Global Times wrote that the North Korean economy is by no means as dilapidated as is often assumed: “North Korea has economic and geographic advantages to join the B&R, which will help the country realize its economic potential. It won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight. However, getting North Korea into the B&R initiative to promote economic integration may be easier than what people would have imagined.”

The almost simultaneous SCO summit, which India and Pakistan attended for the first time as full members, was opened by President Xi Jinping with the greeting that the future will be guided by the spirit of Confucius, whose birthplace is in the same Shandong Province as the conference venue in Qingdao. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the proceedings of the conference as the beginning of a new era in creating an international order based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, respect for diversity and joint development. That, he explained, would transcend the outdated concepts of the clash of civilizations, the Cold War, zero-sum games, or exclusionary clubs.

How different was the G7 summit in Canada! The photo showing Mrs. Merkel, German Chancellor, in a confrontational attitude toward Trump, surrounded by the other heads of state and government, is likewise an expression of the break-up of the geopolitically oriented post-war order, of the “G6 against 1” formation. But actually it was only the G4, because Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte do not agree on the continuation of sanctions against Russia. The disunity of the Europeans is clearly visible on the issue of the refugee crisis. It should be obvious for everyone that neither the idea of turning back refugees at the EU’s external borders, by whatever method, is practicable, nor will there will be unity in the EU before the upcoming summit on the basis of the “solutions” proposed so far.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer’s proposal to turn away refugees on the German border, if they are already registered in another EU member country, will tend to lead to the end of the EU’s Schengen agreement, and thereby to the destruction of the foundation of the monetary union. The idea of so-called detention camps in countries such as Libya, which has sunk into internal chaos as a result of President Barack Obama’s military intervention, is so barbaric that it draws the oft-cited “western values” once and for all ad absurdum.

It is expected that by 2040, two billion people will be living in Africa, a huge part of them young people who need education, a job and more generally, a perspective for the future. What the African continent needs is massive investment in infrastructure, industrial capacities and agriculture, of precisely the type that China has made in the last 10 years. China thus helped reduce poverty in Africa from 56% in 1990 to 43% in 2012. At the G20 summit in Hamburg in 2017, Xi Jinping explicitly and repeatedly proposed to Angela Merkel to cooperate with the New Silk Road in Africa. The German government, for its part, has repeatedly spoken of a “Marshall Plan for Africa,” but other than the usual green “sustainable” projects, detention camps, and the securing of the EU’s external borders, nothing has been forthcoming.

The new Undersecretary of State in the Italian Ministry of Development, Professor Michele Geraci, has just published a memorandum for cooperation between Italy and China, in which he identifies eleven sectors in which Italy has an existential interest to cooperate with China. Among other points, the paper states: “Africa and the migrants? Who can help Africa? China.” Geraci reports that China has invested the most in Africa and thanks to China, poverty in Africa has started to decrease for the first time. “China offers Europe and Italy in particular, an historical opportunity to cooperate for the social-economic stabilization of Africa, which we should absolutely not miss. Therefore, we must strengthen cooperation between Italy and China in Africa.”

If the Merkel government is still in place when this article appears, there is a very good way by which the present crises can be overcome – from the migrant crisis to the government crisis and the EU crisis. Taking the example set by the Singapore Summit—that real change is possible, and that the past does not determine the future—the German government should ensure that the agenda of the upcoming European Union summit on June 28-29 be quickly changed. EU cooperation with China’s New Silk Road initiative for the development of Africa should be made the sole subject on the agenda, and Xi Jinping or Wang Yi should be invited to attend, as well as some African heads of state who are already cooperating with China.

If the EU summit, the Chinese government representative, and the African representatives then pronounce in a joint declaration the commitment to undertake a joint crash program for a pan-African infrastructure and development program, and promise all the young people of Africa that the continent will overcome poverty in a short time, such a declaration, due to the participation of China, would have all the credibility in the world in Africa, and would change the dynamic in all the countries towards definite hope for the future, and thus would immediately effect a change in the migrant crisis. It would also free the EU from its current crisis of legitimacy, and give the European nations a mission which would place the unity of Europe on a great new level.

Will the heads of state and government of Europe manage to follow the example of Trump and Kim Jong-un? The prospect of developing Africa together with China, would also give President Trump the urgently needed opportunity to overcome the otherwise looming spiral of trade war, and to balance the [U.S.] trade deficit by increasing trade, primarily through investment in joint ventures in third countries.

The crisis in Europe, the migrant crisis, the crisis of the German government—they have all assumed such dimensions, that the opportunity for a change of course in policy can absolutely be seized. Needed now, are the people to make it happen.

The contrast could not have been greater. While the dysfunctional nature of the dying G7, or G6, or G5 (!) — a remnant of British geopolitics which has dominated post-war policies — was on full display in Canada, an alternative global system was moving ahead in Qingdao, China, with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting, based on the “win-win” outlook of China’s New Silk Road policy. And while the destabilized leaders of the increasingly irrelevant G7 were left to whine about President Trump abandoning them — both figuratively and literally — Trump’s extraordinary summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was a reflection of his orientation to Eurasia, as its success is in part due to his collaboration with leaders of China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

And what do people living in the Transatlantic region know about this new Eurasian dynamic which is shaping the future? Unfortunately, since most of the officials of the “mainstream” political parties of the West continue to act in the interests of the geopolitical doctrine created by the British Empire, and the media spew forth Fake News to back it up, few are aware of the reality of the great global transformation underway.

Each week, Helga Zepp LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute, provides a succinct and dramatic presentation, designed to put her viewers on the stage of history. In these weekly webcasts, she has provided both an overview of events, from the top-down, and a method of analysis, which give her viewers an opportunity to play a part in this transformation. Don’t miss her presentation this week, with your host Harley Schlanger, and make sure to inform as many others as possible, that this is their opportunity to break out from under the bubble of lies and disinformation, so they may catch the New Silk Road Spirit.

The outcome of this tumultuous period of history depends upon the establishment of an agreement among major nations, namely the Four Powers: the United States, Russia, China, and India. Such international economic cooperation is the unique basis for a new security architecture, for peace. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, keynoted the NYC Schiller Institute’s June 9 conference in Manhattan. Zepp-LaRouche was joined by Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN from the Russian Federation, video greetings from Xu Wenhong, PhD, Deputy Secretary General of Belt and Road Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and LaRouchePAC’s Jason Ross.

Panel Two of the International Schiller Institute conference in NYC, June 9, 2018. Speakers include Dennis Speed, Northeast Coordinator, Schiller Institute — “The LaRouche Method: Seed-Crystal of a New Culture,” James George Jatras, former U.S. Diplomat and former Adviser to Republican Senate Leadership — “The Urgency of a Trump-Putin Summit,” and Richard Black, Virginia State Senator — “The Strategic Importance of Victory, Peace and Development in Syria,” followed by a lively Q&A.

June 5 -“Continuing multifaceted engagement between two large economies! [Indian Foreign Minister] Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi met on the sidelines of the BRICS Ministerial Conference. Both leaders discussed ways to maintain the momentum in bilateral and multilateral cooperation,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar enthusiastically tweeted yesterday after the two held a bilateral meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa on the sidelines of the meeting among the BRICS Foreign Ministers.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang was also enthusiastic. Xinhua reported that Wang had said in their meeting that “China and India working together will accelerate the common development of the two countries, benefit the entire world, and contribute to the progress of human civilization…. China and India have extensive common interests, and they have far more consensus than differences,” he emphasized, according to Xinhua. “The two sides should take bilateral relations and people’s fundamental interests as a starting point at all times, properly handle problems and differences, and prevent the interests of one party from affecting the overall interest. China and India should strengthen coordination and play a constructive role in promoting the development of BRICS cooperation, Shanghai Cooperation Organization and other multilateral mechanisms.”

Xinhua reported that India’s Swaraj spoke of the “unprecedented success” of the informal meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping at Wuhan at the end of April, as it “enhanced mutual trust between the two countries, strengthened cooperation, [and] made the parties more comfortable with each other.” As the two largest developing countries, “the two sides should further strengthen coordination and cooperation within multilateral mechanisms and contribute to preserving the common interests of developing countries,” she said.

The full BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting demonstrates that the BRICS process, uniting five members countries representing much of humanity–Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa–remains an active force, despite the “regime change” operations run in Brazil and South Africa in hopes of killing it. Brazil’s Foreign Minister did choose to attend the simultaneous Organization of American States General Assembly meeting in Washington, D.C. in order to support the drive to kick Venezuela out of that body, instead of the BRICS, but that government still had to send its Deputy Foreign Minister to represent it.

According to both Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Chinese Foreign Ministry press spokesman, the meeting was “constructive and thorough,” as the ministers agreed the purpose of the BRICS remains that of building “a brighter shared future for the global community,” as the final communiqué states.

June 5 – A three-page spread on “Portugal in China’s New Silk Road” in the May 31 issue of Portugal’s {Expresso} daily writes that “the Atlantic is missing from the current map of the initiative,” but Portuguese Belt and Road researcher Paulo Duarte tells them “the Atlantic Ocean is a space in transformation…. The trend will be for China to engage in this ocean in coming years.” Portugal offers “a string of pearls” of deepwater seaports on the European continent and on its Atlantic island such as the Azores, for this initiative, Jorge Rocha de Matos, president of the Fundacão AIP, a non-profit promoting private sector companies, told {Expresso}.

{Expresso} interviewed Portugal’s Minister of the Sea Ana Paulo Vitorino, who reported that Portugal and China are advancing on a memorandum on a “blue partnership,” dealing with everything related to the oceans and sea economy. The MOU will outline a portfolio of joint research projects on state-of-the-art maritime biotechnologies, deep-sea technologies, etc.

Portugal’s primary capital is its geography, when it comes to the BRI, she said, citing Portugal’s “strategic centrality. …. Portugal is at the interface between Europe and the Atlantic.” the reported that China is interested not only in building up Sines port, where the China Communications Construction Co. will be a bidder in the tender for expanding Sines which will be launched later this year. Increased Chinese activity here will turn this port, once considered a “white elephant” into a crown jewel, she said. But “China is not only looking at Sines;” it is also studying investments to upgrade the entire national port system, she said.

Read Harley’s article: No More Doubt: It’s the U.K., not Russia, that Meddled in the U.S. Elections https://goo.gl/3yB5Xs

Developments of the last days demonstrate that the potential to bring the world into a new era of peaceful economic progress is emerging, centered around the diplomacy and physical economic advances associated with China’s New Silk Road (NSR) policy. The dynamic unleashed by the NSR, which Helga Zepp LaRouche has called the New Paradigm, has brought together the leading nations of Asia — China, India, Japan, South Korea — and Eurasian power Russia, into an alliance which is causing increasing panic among those still yearning for the days when the British Empire’s geopolitics dominated every aspect of international relations. Many nations in Africa and South and Central America have also joined the NSR. Were President Trump freed from the insanity of Russiagate, to enable him to coordinate fully with the emerging Eurasian economic powerhouse, the era of British-run geopolitical conflicts could be ended.

This potential is seen in the revival of the Trump-Kim summit, which could lead to an official end of the Korean War, and also possibly eventually to a nuclear-free, unified Korea, as well as in the reports of ongoing planning for a Trump-Putin summit, which could address the dangerous tensions between the two nations resulting from a series of recent British provocations. That these two summits are moving ahead, in spite of the persistent toxicity spawned by the made-in-London Russiagate scandal, proves that this dynamic can overcome the incessant corruption of Trans-Atlantic policies. There is a growing sense of desperation in the daily activities of legal hitman Robert Mueller, as his allies in launching Russiagate may soon find themselves before Grand Juries!

And what of Europe? With Putin traveling to Austria, and the new government coming together in Italy, the defenders of the European Union’s status quo are being directly challenged. The inevitability of change is coming to Brussels, as the old paradigm is unraveling.

Join Helga Zepp LaRouche and your host Harley Schlanger this Thursday, as she points the way forward in her weekly webcast.